Oba Kolapo Adegbite Adedoyin, the Owa Ale of Ikareland is a lawyer by profession before ascending the throne. He speaks with HAKEEM GBADAMOSI on the history of the ancient town, why the town has two traditional heads, the need to close ranks to develop the town and sundry issues. Excerpts:
There are two traditional rulers managing the affairs of this town, how did this happen?
How a community, city or town, village is governed traditionally by an Oba or community leader is determined by the historical background of that town. So, like all other Yoruba towns, in order to know why a particular community has two or more traditional rulers, you have to go back to the history of that town. There are some towns in Yoruba land where we have more than one Oba. In Ikare, we have two but it was based on an accident of history. Let’s go down the memory lane, Ikare as it was in the past was founded by my great ancestor called Agba Ode who was one of the grand children of Oduduwa. He migrated from Ile Ife during the disaster period like other Yoruba princes with his Chiefs, like the Olona, the Olokoja, Akuko, Oloyinmo and so many others with members of his family. He traversed various areas and eventually settled in Ikare based on instructions from Ifa. But when he was leaving, they were sharing the properties of their father, Oduduwa and when they were sharing the crowns, the then Agba Ode who was relatively young realised that he might not get out of this, so he went and picked one of the crowns. This is very symbolic and important in the history of Ikare because that singular action of Agba Ode determined the future and the title of Owa Ale. When eventually they settled at a place now known as Oke Iba, it is behind the hill and that’s why at Ikare today our number one appellation is “Ikare Omo Oloke Meji tako tabo, that’s the hill behind my palace here. We call it Oke Owa Ale or Oke Baba wa, meaning the hill of our progenitor.
Like I said earlier, Agba Ode had been told through the Ifa divination that where he was going to settle down would be determined by some unique features. Eventually they came to that hilly place and they noticed two significant things there, they got there during the dry season, and there was a brook on the hill which is still there today, we call it Omi Atan, and throughout that dry season the water was there and never dried up. That was one of the unique things they saw and secondly, they settled under a tree where there were weaver birds, a tree which we call Igi Akere in Ikare. If you get to traditional houses, palaces or places of worship in Yoruba land, weaver birds are always present and we don’t normally eat them because they are regarded as birds of peace, they are always in large numbers. So our ancestors now settled under this tree, the uniqueness of that tree was that, that was where Ikare got its name-from the tree, Igi Akere and got Ikare from there. But the Olukare gave another version of history; maybe he must have been told a wrong version of how Ikare got its name.
But how did the Olukare emerge as king?
The history is this, after two hundred years when Agba Ode had settled down, the ancestors of the present Olukare came from Bida and they called him Umar Etimigbo, that name is an appellation because whenever they talk to him, he will tell them that he cannot understand and that was the reason they named him Etimigbo. When they came to this place, they met Owa Ale Orukusuku who happened to be a great warrior and they were looking for people to settle with them and they urged the Etimigbo and his people to settle with them. They were settled at a place because among the Yoruba traditional customs, you don’t settle strangers among natives in the heart of the town. That is why in most of the towns in Yorubaland, we have where we call certain settlement for non natives. So where you meet today is the core center of the town and they settled Etimigbo at a lower section of Ikare which we call Ikare Odo and that’s why up till today they call that quarters Ikado. Where the Olukare is staying today is not his own quarters, it was after his ancestors had problem that my father settled them there. A lot of the people followed Umar to this place and that’s why we have a lot of Muslims here in Ikare today. All these were before the 1914 amalgamation under Lord Lugard and we were being ruled from Lokoja and our ancestor by then was Owa Ale Ajiboye and he was sending Umar as one of his Chiefs or one of his emissaries to the north because we were being ruled from the North. The District Officer settled there and since they were used to that place, Umar was one of those people they were sending. Then as time went on, he was misrepresenting himself and started parading himself as an Oba when he started wearing a crown in 1947. He was warned and he wrote series of letters to the Resident Officer, Olowo of Owo saying that he should be allowed to wear crown but the Resident Officer said he should not while the Olowo then, Sir Olateru Olagbegi said it was only the Owa Ale who wears a crown, all these letters are here to confirm these stories.
But the Olukare seems to have more recognition than the Owa Ale?
The issue of classification is a political issue. There was a time that there was no classification in the whole of Ikare. One thing I want you to know is that I was the first educated Owa Ale while Olukare’s ancestors were well educated, they had secondary school education. As far back as 1956 the then Olukare Babatunde who reigned from 1953 to 1956 was highly educated, Amusa Momoh too was educated and they were all using that opportunity to garner support and recognition from government and that’s why he was made a first class Oba.
Despite all these, is there a cordial relationship between you and Olukare especially for the town’s development?
In 1983 when they were struggling for the position of the Olukare, the present Olukare was not a candidate for that chieftaincy initially, I was a critical stakeholder on the issue of who becomes an Olukare or not but along the line, his name appeared. Because we were classmates; we left Victory College together in 1958, and in 1972 when I was installed as the Owa Ale, the present Olukare was still in America studying, he even wrote a letter to me then congratulating me as the Owa Ale but if you get to him now, he will say I am Chief Ale and not Owa Ale, I still have a copy of that letter. How can you oscillate blowing hot and cold? Then, I garnered support for him because we were classmates and because he was the most educated among the eight contestants, then virtually we were of the same group. With those three qualities I felt we will be able to operate on the same wavelength, so I threw my weight behind him and disrupted the original arrangement. He eventually became the Olukare but as soon as he got there, he started singing a different tune and got me implicated with so many things but I thank God I am still the Owa Ale today but I still believe that there must be synergy between me and the Olukare to move this town forward. He went to court in 2007 saying I am a chief and lost then, brought another action and again he lost and went for an Appeal and at the Court of Appeal, he lost again. He has lost three cases challenging my position as an Oba.
Do you see this crisis ending?
It will end eventually, I think the last thing I heard is that he went to the Supreme Court and when the Supreme Court gives its final verdict, then he has to rest because every judgment had been favoring me and he had been asked to pay costs in all the three cases. One thing Olukare fails to realize is that it is not all prayers that God assents to and one needs to abide with God’s final decision. I have been an Oba before he got there
Any regret supporting him to become the Olukare?
No. Not at all, my only regret is that there is no synergy or cooperation or interaction between us which is affecting the development of Ikare as a town, there’s no doubt about that. That’s why I’ve never challenged him that he’s not an Oba. I’m a realist because if the government recognizes him as an Oba and the law also recognizes him, why would I go against him?
You’ve been on the throne for over 44 years, have you achieved any of the visions you had for the town when you ascended the throne?
My programmes for this town are many but one of the most important is to ensure people get good education because I believe education and knowledge are important to the socioeconomic development of the people. When I came on board in 1972, fortunately the then Olukare, Oba Amusa Momoh was there but he was only there for four years before he passed on in 1976 and I made it my number one priority that Ikare is lifted up educationally. This is because you cannot rule people if are not on the same wave length with them, they will not understand you. We have sufficient primary schools in Ikare then but there were only three secondary schools; Victory College, Ansarudeen College and Mount Camel to serve the town. So I set up an education committee which I chaired and annually, we did launchings to source funds to provide secondary schools in each of the five administrative quarters in Ikare and by 1983, we had eight additional secondary schools making eleven secondary schools to take off with.
Apart from that, we struggled to make sure we had an HSC and a College of Education which was eventually taken to Epinmmi. In other words, educationally Ikare was jerked up. Then I was the chairman of the Stadium Committee and we built a good stadium but it has not been completed. We also felt peace is an important ingredient to development, so we struggled to make Ikare a divisional Police headquarters. I want to tell you that all these developments took place before Olukare came on board. Again we felt that there were only two roads that were tarred in Ikare and through the help of late Prof. Afolayan who was the Commissioner for Education, more roads were tarred. We set up an education board where some exceptional children from this town were given scholarship both in secondary schools and university. Again we give priority to health; the General Hospital at Ikare was built around 1957 and cannot again serve the need of the whole people of Akoko. We worked on comprehensive Health centers and there were host of other things too. The late Olukare and I through the help of Jobi, Kunle Abdul and Major Aduloju started a Hall because there was no hall in Ikare then and up till now but when the present Olukare got there, the whole thing was stalemated.
Before then, every 26th of December, the whole of Ikare community will meet at the Customary Court to take vital decisions, this usually brings everybody from Ikare together but since the Olukare came, he said the meeting should be held in his palace and since that time, there had been no meeting since 1984 December for the Ikare community.
and then